DRUPAD MELA
Varanasi is known for its music schools and musical performances and the height of the music season is the Drupad Mela, this week, when free concerts are put on under large tents on the bank of the Ganges. Susie and Todd attended a concert last night but I was too knocked out by food poisoning to go.
But on Monday and Tuesday there were a couple of concerts next door to our guest house which were marvelous. The first was in the Ganges River View, an old style hotel two doors down which I recommend to anyone visiting Varanasi for a few days. It is in the former spacious family home of the present owner who loves art and music. The main dining room is lined with miniature paintings and other beautiful artifacts. This room becomes a concert hall several times a year and on Monday we were invited to a concert. Most of the audience sits crosslegged on the carpet covered floor but I and Susie were there in time to get a chair. I can no longer sit crosslegged on the floor.
The concert was by a Japanese musician who had mastered an instrument on which he tapped with little hammers accomapanied by a sitar player. The concert was peaceful and delightful.
The next night we went to a rooftop concert on the roof of the Alice Bonner House, next door to our guest house. Todd, who was recovering from something that had knocked him out a little was able to listen from our rooftop and to watch the concert if he leaned over.
This concert was a combination of classical Indian sitar music accompanied by a tabla with a band from Bangalore, South Indian, who added and electric guitar and and an electric banjo to what was very Indian music, riff after riff with the sitar and then the electric banjo taking turns.
Alice Bonner was a rich Swiss lady who fell in love with India and lived here from the 1920’s to 1978. She was instrumental in bringing Ravi Shankar and Indian music to Europe. Her three story house with an inner atrium filled with plants if fun to visit and the electronic concert, again, was beautiful, although extremely loud, covering up the sounds to racket coming from the the ghats.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 